NOVEL NEXT Chapter 17: Retorta chapter 11
The Soutaichou stands in front of his subcommanders and feels the weight of every single one of his thousand years. Betrayal, new threats, and defection-- the Gotei 13 hasn't been this low on captains and lieutenants since the end of the Quincy war. What's worse, all the survivors have been gathering under this new rogue Shiba, and the Central 46 is practically gibbering in fear.
Worse, Ichimaru has now disappeared, an order for the boy's execution has been passed down, and Unohana is being serenely utterly unhelpful , nevermind that she was the one who had taken charge of him.
No matter. He has worse things to worry about than a missing third seat, and Unohana knows well enough not to truly cross him, not after he put her in her place all those centuries ago.
(What he fails to notice is, surely, not relevant. Unohana is Unohana, a known quantity, not a threat to his authority, a tamed dog on a leash. Surely, neither of them are the wolves they once were. Surely.)
He clears his throat and his shinigami come to attention. Even Shunsui does not play at sleep, more than aware of how dire the situation is, taking his place instead of hovering over Juushiro the way Kaien is. Kiganjo sways on his feet, drunk on bloodlust and anticipation. Ginrei stands silently, a dignified pillar of strength. Mayuri is there, standing in for Urahara. Soi Fon looks heartbroken and furious. Half a dozen other hastily promoted third and fourth seats shift uncomfortably under the weight of his gaze.
Children, all of them.
It is past time they grew up. War has come to their doorstep, and death waits for no man.
No one has heard from Aizen in a week. That's not unusual in and of itself, but they haven't heard from Tousen either, and he's usually Aizen's proxy when they have business with the shinigami.
No one is alarmed, per se, except the few who actually believe that Aizen is there for something more than to lead them all to their deaths.
Barragan gets restless first, chafing under the lack of a visible leash. He hasn't declared himself king again, but that might be because Nelliel is eyeing him in a manner that suggests that she will find a way to hurt him if he starts causing trouble, Tercera or not. Ulquiorra has disappeared again, presumably angsting on top of Las Noches. Starrk is napping in a corner. Harribel is absent as well-- probably seeing to the actual running of Las Noches in the sudden dearth of actual rulers.
Grimmjow would sooner swallow his tongue than admit it, but he thinks that between Nel and Harribel, Las Noches has pretty good leadership already. The two of them just get on with the necessities while everyone else quibbles over titles and fails to notice that none of them are actually running anything.
He might even hold off on challenging Nel again for a little bit, while they're still consolidating their power. She won't have time to deal with him, not with everything else going crazy, and he does actually have a modicum of respect for the two of them, because they don't bother with posturing. They know their power, and where they stand, and they carry it with a confidence that none of the others do.
That, and they have their priorities straight. Damn admirable, that.
With that in mind, he wanders back over toward Barragan and his so-called court, just in time to overhear an energetic discussion over who has to go to Soul Society to take a look.
Oh, that's a bad idea if he's ever heard one.
… he wants in.
It doesn't actually take much convincing. For all the noise he usually makes, he was still born of a panther Adjuchas. Grimmjow is literally built for stealth and speed, and a few short moments later, Barragan is "graciously" allowing him to go, instead of his deeply relieved fraccion.
Honestly, why they're all so afraid of dropping into the center of the territory of a group bred to kill them is beyond him.
He slips easily through the most subtle garganta he can manage, well outside the range of the shinigami sensors. After that, it's easy to drop his reiatsu to nothingness and slip along the wall until he can hop over after a racing figure clad in black. He follows them to a teeming mass of lower-ranking shinigami, all babbling loudly.
So, according to rumor, Aizen is dead. So is Tousen. Gin is under a kill order, but no one can figure out where he is. The commander from the twelfth went crazy and just took them all out without breaking a sweat. An orange haired man stronger than the Soutaichou fell out of the sky. (Which, what?) They all vanished, and took the shinigami-hollow hybrids with them, along with the lead assassin and their best demon magic specialist.
Grimmjow scoffs at all of them and heads for where he last caught Aizen's scent. He has more tracking tools available to him than these wimps, certainly.
His nose isn't as sensitive as it is in his resurreccion form, but even as good as he is, he couldn't conceal the reiatsu flare from entering that. Even so, he doesn't need those heightened senses to catch where Aizen's parchment and static scent intersects with weapons oil and pain, so sharp that it hurts Grimmjow's nose. The fight must have taken mere seconds, if it could even be called a fight. Both parties had spilled blood, but it was clearly Aizen who had fallen in the end.
And then the crater still in the ground, saturated in the scent of pure power. Grimmjow is quivering before he even realizes he's reacted, trembling with excitement at the promise of true danger, a challenge he can taste twisting through the air.
He's moving already, tracking toward the giant hill in the distance, near the center of the shinigami stronghold. No one notices him; he's too fast for the lower levels and too quiet, too suppressed on power for the upper levels.
This is going to be one hell of a fight. Grimmjow can't wait.
Ichigo is pretty pleased with how things are going. The Visored don't want to flee to the human world, but with demonstrable stability and a strong position to negotiate from, and taking into account the severely weakened state of the Gotei 13, Kisuke and Shinji think that they may be able to work something out with the Soutaichou, if the nobles can be appeased or sidelined.
He doesn't feel even the slightest bit guilty for wishing Aizen had killed them all before dying.
Everyone is training--or finding their new limits, as far as the newborn Visored are concerned. Gin collapses looking like he wants to die every evening, under the tender care of Yoruichi. The improvement is noticeable, though, in all of them. Yoruichi in particular, deeply offended by Kisuke's improvement beyond her ken, has begun training herself more or less into the ground. Kisuke and Ichigo find themselves teaching Tessai, Hacchi, and Shinji the first ten kido in the Century Set, which is surreal because Tessai helped Kisuke and Ichigo invent them in the first place.
It's really, really entertaining watching the elder shinigami flounder like first year Academy students, though. Tessai, as ever, catches on with terrifying quickness, although he doesn't quite have the reiatsu reserves that these kido were designed for. Hacchi has precisely the opposite problem-- with more reiatsu at hand than he's ever had before, he can't cast any kido under 100, but takes to the Century Set like a duck to water.
Shinji just keeps exploding things. Kido 110, Whirling Light Sphere, is a Bakudo ; how did he even manage that? Ichigo is starting to expect that he's doing it intentionally, throwing as much of his new reserves behind each spell as possible.
Maybe he should show him Kido 128--that seems to be right up his alley, and it's a little more destructive besides.
Of course, everything goes sideways in a single second, as it always does. Out of nowhere , a reiatsu signature flares into existence, just inside the ward boundary. It climbs, higher and higher, easily surpassing captain-class and then continuing to rise, causing the cavern to shake from its foundations.
Ichigo knows that reiatsu signature. Has fought the owner a thousand times, again and again until they were less enemies and more old rivals. There's no familiarity in this signature, though, only a sharp newness to it that speaks of someone only just beginning to push their own limits and eager to test them.
… fuck him, he forgot about the goddamn Arrancar.